Our Opinion: The usual

Tallahassee will be a target once again

It wasn't so much a State of the State address as it was a salvo in this year's campaign for the Governor's Mansion.

Gov. Rick Scott kept it simple on Tuesday morning, repeating the main goals he has voiced since unveiling his budget plan in late January: cut taxes and fees, remove regulations to free up business, and increase K-12 education spending.

As he stood before a joint session of the state House and Senate, Gov. Scott also took the opportunity to blast "the previous administration" for losing nearly 1 million jobs (reminder: the previous governor was Charlie Crist, Gov. Scott's presumed Democratic opponent this fall).

"They say it doesn't matter who was running our state - that anyone would have been just a victim of the times," Gov. Scott said. "I disagree."

It also was crystal clear Tuesday that Tallahassee, with its many state and university workers, is not ground zero for Republican campaign efforts.

Gov. Scott pledged to work to undo 2007 and 2009 laws that let universities raise tuition to account for inflation and also allowed them to request tuition hikes of up to 15 percent. That's might be good news for parents of college-age children - but it's bad news for Tallahassee, whose two universities are still recovering from years of cuts.

House Speaker Will Weatherford repeated his goal of changing the Florida Retirement System. Regardless of whether proposed changes exempt first responders, getting them passed could be dicey in an election year, even for Republicans.

Nowhere in the governor's State of the State address was a mention of raises for state workers. In fact, there was no mention of state workers.

There was plenty of well-deserved praise heaped upon hard-working Floridians, but none for those who work hard in government, translating the laws that our legislators enact into action and protecting the state's children, its environment, indeed even its businesses. The mantra continues to be that government exists merely to take the taxpayer's money.

"We want you to keep more of the money you earn, because it's your money," Gov. Scott said.

Senate President Don Gaetz echoed that thought, saying: "Every dollar in Tallahassee is involuntarily extracted from the pockets and cash registers of the people of Florida."

It's unfortunate that such an attitude is promoted by our elected leaders, and unfortunate that our state workers once again will be pawns in a political game.